Healthcare software: Benefits and Doubts

Why does the healthcare industry need software for its proper functioning? The answers can be found in convenience. A personal approach to the patient, fast procedure, proper documentation, and easy access allow the healthcare process to have a comfortable appeal. Too good to be true? The statistics show it all.

According to a survey done by National Ambulatory Medical Care in 2010, per every 100 patients, there were 332 visits with the main antecedent for these visits being a simple cough. Such a situation shows us that physician’s time could be spent more efficiently. Problems like these are the reason healthcare software exists; to simplify bureaucratic issues and save time and money for both doctors and patients.

Observing current trend, we can conclude that many participants of the healthcare industry stick to the same point. For instance, Markets&Markets research considers the market of healthcare cloud computing growing from $3.73 to $9.48 billion by 2020 Billion in 2015 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20.5% for the period forecasted.

Deloitte report estimates that by 2018, 50% of the 3.4 billion mobile gadget users around the world would have installed some form of a mHealth app (mobile health). The overall size of the digital healthcare market is expected to grow as well, reaching $233.3 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 21.2 percent (comparing to $60.8 billion in 2013). Investments into the digital healthcare industry keep pace with the numbers above: $4 billion in 2014 with telemedicine being the fastest-growing category (315% growth from 2013 to 2014).

One of the major concerns in the healthcare software field are the security issues, also being the most expensive in the industry. The 6 biggest breaches in 2015 affected around 1 million individuals within, 4 of the 6 Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations. The report implies that such breaches cost the healthcare industry roughly $5.6bn annually. 79% of the healthcare organizations surveyed in a Ponemon report claimed to have at least two data breaches in the past two years with 45% having more than five breaches. The data loss wasn’t more than 500 records, therefore not being released into the media cycle.